(From the blog of Mister Journalism: Reading, Sharing, Discussing, Learning)
By Jeff Salisbury https://misterjournalism.wordpress.com/
If early-childhood education is so critical why do we pay workers so little?
Nearly half the families of Michigan’s child care workers rely on public assistance, report says
By Brian McVicar | bmcvicar@mlive.com
Follow on Twitter http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/07/nearly_half_of_michigans_child.html
While researchers re
gularly tout the importance of early childhood education, many of Michigan’s preschool teachers and child care workers earn low, often unlivable wages, according to a new report.
Preschool teachers, for instance, earned a median wage of $13.34 per hour in 2015, down 9 percent from five years earlier.
Child care workers fare even worse. They have a median wage of $9.43, down 10 percent during the same period, according to the report, from the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at the University of California-Berkeley.
Coupled with few opportunities for paid professional development, the meager wages make it difficult to attract and retain talent in the field, which is seen as critical for setting children up for success in kindergarten and well beyond.
http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/07/nearly_half_of_michigans_child.html
And speaking of living in poverty, there is this from the Battle Creek Enquirer:
Editorial: Impoverished politics, neglected kids EDITORIAL BOARD, BATTLE CREEK ENQUIRER
There are a lot of reasons for the decline of Michigan’s public schools, but none are quite so indicting as the state’s neglect of families living in poverty.
That neglect is not exactly news — the annual Kids Count in Michigan Data Book has been sounding the alarm for years about poor living conditions for our state’s children. Its 2016 report is particularly bleak, documenting significant rises in poverty, abuse and neglect.
Rarely, however, do these indicators come up in the context of improving educational outcomes, this in spite of mountains of data that show poverty is a common thread in the state’s struggling schools. Perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in the Michigan’s oversight of federally funded, state-administered child care.
A recent analysis in Bridge Magazine finds that Michigan has among the lowest reimbursement rates in the nation for subsidized child care. Further, those subsidies are available to only the poorest of families — those earning less than $25,000 for a family of three. Only Kentucky has a lower limit.
The result is that few low-income families have access to the kind of child care that could improve their children’s chances for success. The irony is that Michigan’s child-care subsidy program was created at about the same time as its Great Start Readiness Program, which only a few weeks ago was lauded as a model for the nation.
The Learning Policy Institute in June published a research brief citing Michigan and three other states — West Virginia, Washington and North Carolina — as exemplars in early childhood education.
“Each state meets at least eight of the 10 quality benchmarks of the National Institute for Early Education Research,” the report states, “and each has been the subject of research that found positive outcomes for children.”
Michigan also gets kudos for expanding Great Start in 2013. The pre-K program serves more than 38,000 students, about half of the state’s eligible 4-year-olds.
“The next steps for Michigan,” the brief offered, “include … expanding offerings for children from birth to age 3.”
In that regard, however, Michigan is backsliding. Bridge reports that since 2005, the number of low-income Michigan parents receiving subsidized care has dropped by two‐thirds, to 22,000 from nearly 65,000, and that childcare spending has dropped more than 70 percent over the same span.
Those are troubling numbers in state where schools have been described as being in “freefall,” in which a system once ranked among the best in the nation has plummeted to 40th.
Although the national push to expand early childhood education is laudable, most researchers agree that pre-K comes too late for kids who start life in impoverished environments. The stress of living in poverty takes a heavy toll on a child’s developing brain, often putting those children hopelessly behind by the time they reach school age.
It’s estimated that low-income students are more than four times more likely to drop out of high school than their peers, and among those who do graduate, the achievement gap is staggering.
The blog “The Science of Learning” reports that “the gap in SAT scores between wealthy and poor students has grown by 42 percent in the last two decades.”
The numbers paint a dire picture, but researchers also note that targeted interventions — including investments in quality, structured child care — can mitigate the effects of poverty on young minds.
North Carolina, which is one of a handful of states that integrate its child care licensing and quality rating, has made great strides in reducing in third-grade test scores.
Those are the kind of efforts that Michigan can — and should — emulate.
We know that education is the key to escaping poverty, yet poverty remains the great obstacle to getting a good education.
The latter needs more attention in Michigan. The question is whether our leaders in Lansing can summon the political will to provide it.
…until next time, keep reading, sharing, discussing, learning.